


The End of the Long War

by inbetweenfractals



Series: The Son of the Fire Lord [2]
Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: F/F, Found Family, Gen, Mentions of Homophobic Violence, Nonbinary Character, Other, misgendering although not on purpose, the return of Chen and Lanfen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-02
Updated: 2020-06-02
Packaged: 2021-03-04 00:08:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,307
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24514381
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inbetweenfractals/pseuds/inbetweenfractals
Summary: In which Zuko returns home.
Relationships: Sokka/Zuko (Avatar)
Series: The Son of the Fire Lord [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1771507
Comments: 11
Kudos: 237





	The End of the Long War

**Author's Note:**

> I just really wanted a chance to have Zuko interact with Chen and Lanfen again. I hope you enjoy this little bit of Zuko and their two extra moms

It is hard to believe that the war is over.

It’s been the backdrop to Lanfen’s entire  _ life _ , that and the constant struggle to find herself amidst a world that would destroy her.

But, well. She still has Chen, and she grounds Lanfen. Lanfen wonders sometimes if benders feel the same pull to their elements that she does to Chen. She supposes she will never know.

“Lanfen!” Speaking of Chen, that’s her voice calling. Lanfen glances out the window, but it is still too early for lunch. Is something the matter? She can feel that old panic rising in her throat, that fear that she and Chen will be chased away again.

But Chen doesn’t sound upset at all when she calls Lanfen’s name again. 

So despite her misgivings, Lanfen gets up, setting her current project aside. On legs just a bit numb from sitting so long, she walks over to the door to the little home she shares with her wife and opens it.

Outside, Chen is grinning broadly, arm wrapped around a young person with a large burn scar on his face and dressed in Fire Nation colors. “Look who came back!”

“Zuko?” At the sound of his name, he smiles shyly.

That’s a new expression for his face to make, Lanfen thinks. It suits him.

There’s another man too, about Zuko’s height. He is darker even than Chen and is dressed in Water Tribe blue. He elbows Zuko. “You were so cagey - you didn’t tell me you had an extra two moms!”

At this, Zuko scowls and tries to duck out of Chen’s hold, but he doesn’t try very hard so she continues to hug him. “I don’t - well. Sort of.” He sighs and pinches his nose with his free hand.

The other hand, Lanfen notes, is being held by the other man. It is a touch that looks casual, like they’re used to holding each other’s hands. The sight makes her heart ache, but in a good clean way. Like an infection draining from an old wound.

Zuko lets go of his nose and gestures at the Water Tribe man. “This is Sokka.”

“It’s nice to meet you!” Sokka says. He shrugs a shoulder at Zuko. “I’m their boyfriend.”

Lanfen smiles. “I’m Lanfen, Chen’s wife. It’s good to meet you - come in and I’ll fix us up some tea.”

Chen finally lets go of Zuko, giving him a pat on the back as she passes. She takes the door from Lanfen and holds it so the others can come in. They do, Zuko bowing his head as he enters and Sokka looking around curiously.

Chen and the boys settle around the low table as Lanfen busies herself boiling water for tea. “Any preferences on tea?”

Zuko’s voice is soft when he answers. “Jasmine if you have it.”

“Of course. You know, after you left, I always made sure to have some on hand in case you ever returned. It seemed to mean a lot to you.”

Even more softly, Zuko says, “Thank you. It does.”

“Did you manage to find your uncle?” Chen asks.

Zuko nods. “Uncle is in the Fire Nation right now, so he couldn’t come. He wanted to express his thanks to you, however, for taking care of me while we were apart.”

...right. Lanfen’s hands still, resting on the teapot. Zuko is the new Fire Lord. So his uncle must be acting as regent while Zuko is away. The thought of the Fire Nation and its leader still causes Lanfen’s heart to beat too quickly, but when she turns, Zuko and Sokka are still holding hands. That eases her anxiety a little.

When the tea is ready, Lanfen carries the tea set on a little tray over to the table and sits. She passes out the cups and pours. Zuko only lets go of Sokka’s hand to accept the tea with a nod. “So how have you two boys been doing?”

For some reason, both Zuko and Sokka flinch at that, although in Sokka’s case his eyes dart to Zuko. Zuko sets down his cup.

“I...have something to tell you,” he says carefully. Lanfen glances at Chen, but Chen looks just as confused as she feels. “I was born a boy, but I am not one. I am not a girl either. My uncle calls it being a spirit person - to be someone who balances between genders.”

Lanfen vaguely recalls the old legends of people touched by spirits, not representing any one path. But she’s never heard of anyone who wasn’t what they were born as before. She says as much.

Zuko answers, “By my understanding, such things are not well known or accepted in the Earth Kingdom. In the Fire Nation, there used to be more openness about genders being separate from the body, but that hasn’t been the case in over one hundred years. I’ve been working to try and make it more acceptable there, so that I can live as myself.”

Oh, Lanfen thinks. 

“If it is about living as yourself, then I want to support you,” Lanfen says. “I can’t claim that I understand what you’re talking about, but if you say you are something other than man or woman, then I believe you. I want to accept you as you are.”

Chen nods. “You should get to be yourself.”

Some of the tension that Lanfen hadn’t even realized was there drains out of Zuko’s posture. “Then I’d like for you to use they/them pronouns for me,” he - no,  _ they _ \- they say.

“Alright,” Chen says with a smile. “They/them it is.” She raises her cup of tea as if to say  _ cheers _ , then takes a sip. “Your tea is lovely as always, Lanfen.”

“Lanfen’s famous cure-all,” Zuko murmurs into their cup.

“That’s right,” Chen says. “Though with a day like this, there is not much to be cured. It really is good to see you, Zuko. And to meet you, Sokka.”

“Of course! It’s always a pleasure to meet me,” Sokka says, grinning. He claps a hand on Zuko’s back, nearly causing them to spill their tea. They fix a glare on Sokka, but there is no real heat in it.

“How did you two meet?” Lanfen asks, looking between the two. 

“Oh, we met when Zuko was still a jerk trying to capture the Avatar,” Sokka tells her cheerfully. Zuko groans and buries their head in their hands, but Lanfen can see that the tip of their good ear has turned a bit red. “They came crashing into my village, demanding we hand him over.”

“At the time, it was my only way home,” Zuko says quietly, face still hidden. “I thought it was what I needed to do.”

Lanfen remembers the day before Zuko left them, a couple years before. There had been fire and fear in their face as they told her and Chen that they had burned Kyoshi Island to the ground. And she remembers her own words:  _ We can all do horrible things, but that doesn’t have to define us all our lives. _

_ We can move forward. _

“I know,” Sokka is saying, wrapping an arm around Zuko’s shoulders, which suddenly seem so very narrow and thin. “But you’ve changed. And now, not just the Fire Nation is your home.”

He spares a glance at Lanfen, then at Chen. Chen then smiles, just a bit softly, and says, “Our home is always open to you, you know. Ever since you first stayed with us.”

“Thank you,” Zuko says, looking up. Their eyes are very bright.

Apparently sensing a need for a change of subject, Sokka asks, “So you’ve heard how we met. How did you guys meet?”

“Do you mean how we met each other, or how we met Zuko?” Lanfen asks.

“Both, I guess.”

Chen says, “I’ll let Lanfen handle the first question if she wants to, but we met Zuko when, ah,  _ they _ collapsed by our fields. They were very dehydrated, and I don’t think they had eaten much either.”

Sokka turns a piercing gaze on Zuko, who seems to wilt a bit under the stare. 

“I didn’t think about it!” Zuko says, a touch of panic in their voice. Then, more slowly and carefully, they continue, “Uncle and I had a row, and I left. At the time, everything felt so...distant. At times, I think I thought I was a spirit. Or something like one. I don’t really remember too well.”

“Huh,” Sokka says.

“That explains a few things,” Lanfen says. “It took a while for you to talk much. And you seemed far away, especially at first. We were afraid someone had hurt you. Someone from your family.”

Like that time before, Zuko stiffens. Something in Lanfen’s gut turns to ice. Their voice is a bit hoarse when they say, “That’s...not wrong. But it wasn’t Uncle. He’s always done his best by me.”

Lanfen’s gaze flicks to Zuko’s scar, and then she looks away. Knowing now that they are a firebender and come from a firebending family, Lanfen has serious concerns about where that scar came from. But she senses that asking after it will sour the visit, so she says, “I can tell you about how Chen and I came to meet.”

Zuko nods quickly, expression obviously, painfully grateful. 

Lanfen smiles, but it’s a small thing. Chen leans over to pick up her hand and hold it between both of her own. When Lanfen looks at her, Chen brushes a kiss over the back of her hand. Lanfen’s smile grows.

She looks at Sokka and Zuko, and she can feel her smile fade. “It doesn’t start out as a happy story. My family had learned of my...romantic orientation, and they were displeased, to put it mildly. They gave me an ultimatum: marry a man they chose for me, or leave and never return. I chose the latter.”

Zuko sucks in a breath.

“They tried to catch me,” Lanfen continues. “I don’t think that they thought I’d leave, and I guess they didn’t want me to, so they sought to punish me for it. I had gotten a couple villages over already when they found me. They started to, um, to beat me, but Chen saw and stepped in. My family doesn’t bend, and for the most part they avoid violence, so when Chen confronted them, they ran.

“At the time, Chen was known to love women, so she was ostracized by her community. I didn’t know that at the time, I just thought that a wonderful person had deigned to save me without the full story. But even when I explained, she took me home and helped me recuperate. That is, until my family came again.

“This time they brought a hired earthbender with them. I knew I had no choice but to run, and Chen decided she wanted to come with me. I tried to talk her out of it, but she wouldn’t hear of it. So we ran. We got far enough that my family no longer cared to come after us, and then we settled down here and began to build a life for ourselves. At first we just lived together, but we soon came to fall in love. 

“Here, we’ve never hidden who we are. We aren’t close with the neighboring village, but they will still buy Chen’s crops and commission me for tailoring. It’s not always easy, but we decided to stay here because we wanted others to remember people like us exist, and that we  _ are _ people. None of us should have to hide who we are.”

At the end of her speech, Lanfen takes a long draught of her tea. She feels almost embarrassed, as she has never told their story before.

Chen brushes another kiss over her hand. Lanfen has to resist the urge to cry.

“...I see,” Zuko says at last. Their voice is very quiet, still a bit hoarse. “That explains...why you wanted to protect me, like you did.”

Lanfen offers them a watery smile. “We also wanted to protect you because of who you are. The person that we met - you helped with the plants and my sewing, you never seemed upset or disgusted by us, and you always seemed so careful even when you were trying to tell us who you are and what you had done. That person -  _ you _ \- you are a good person, Zuko, and you at the very least deserve our protection.”

Zuko looks a little pale, and they seem to waver as they say, “I’ve never - never really been called a good person before.” Then they cough and continue, “And to be fair, I had never met people in a same gender relationship before. I wasn’t disgusted or anything, but I guess I was a bit surprised at first.”

“And look at you now!” Sokka says, his cheer a bit forceful. “You’re a good person  _ and  _ you have a boyfriend! Not the same gender, but we certainly aren’t straight either.”

At that, Zuko’s grave expression softens. “Thank you.”

Lanfen sees them think for a moment before quickly and gently pressing a kiss to Sokka’s cheek. Sokka’s face immediately breaks into a grin. He turns and gives Zuko an exaggerated kiss on the mouth. Zuko leans back, cheeks flushed red. They glance at Lanfen and Chen, but seeing no recrimination, their shoulders slump a little and they smile.

It really is a wonderful smile. Although their lips don’t rise evenly due to the scar, the smile reaches up into their eyes and shines. The look in their gaze is brilliant, almost like staring at the sun. 

Lanfen smiles herself, taking a sip of her tea. It’s been a long road for all of them, she knows, but she believes that it leads somewhere bright.


End file.
